High Unemployment Is Due to Skills Mismatch: We've Heard This Before

The NYT reports that the Fed is debating whether much of current unemployment is due to a skills mismatch between workers and the available jobs as opposed to simply a cyclical shortfall in demand. It is worth noting that the assertion of skills mismatch is a predictable behavior of economists in policy positions in every recession. There were many papers arguing exactly this story after the last downturn as the economy continued to shed jobs for almost two years after the recession ended.